Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Reelya]

And yup, on the anti-trans people. It's straight-forward on the Christian Right side, but it would be more enlightening to untangle why so many (mainly 2nd wave) feminist academics are anti-trans.

I think the article already linked (this one) untangles it just fine in its own way. There are different understandings of gender involved.

That article was interesting and it's good to have a range of views explored in one article, but I think the article makes some whopping big logical fallacies in it's attack on genderqueer non-binary thinking.

Many proponents of the queer view of gender describe their own gender identity as ‘non-binary’, and present this in opposition to the vast majority of people whose gender identity is presumed to be binary. On the face of it, there seems to be an immediate tension between the claim that gender is not a binary but a spectrum, and the claim that only a small proportion of individuals can be described as having a non-binary gender identity ... If gender really is a spectrum, doesn’t this mean that every individual alive is non-binary, by definition?

Not at all. The male-female system evolved to reproduce. Therefore things cluster in two zones - male and female. Because that is the purpose of having the system. Evolution also relies on excess children being born, to allow natural selection to happen. So some that develop in non-binary ways is quite possible, while evolution still maintains two main "clusters".

People who are far from the two stable clusters don't tend to have many kiddies, right? A few might, but evolution amplifies fractional differences in reproduction rates to take over the entire gene pool. So "cis" wins the Evolution Wars, even though a few genderqueer types will always be born.

Further, when we observe the analogy with height we can see that, when observing the entire population, only a small minority of people would be accurately described as Tall or Short.

Yeah, complete bullshit argument. In the case of "tall or short" you don't have EVOLUTION specifically working to exclude the middle, because the middle doesn't breed. The article is making retarded arguments that basically any "spectrum" must be normally-distributed. It's just a dumb argument.

Basically, cisgender is the winner of "evolution wars" because it outbreeds the other possible ways of being. But a few non-binary types can be born because there is leeway (excess reproduction) for the purposes of selection. And those non-binary types are just more likely to have some mix of existing cisgender traits from the two existing stable population clusters, because the gene pathways already exist for them. Theoretically, a small proportion of people could be born with completely alien psychology that works, but that's just orders of magnitude less likely than a genderqueer person who has mixes of male and female evolutionary traits. So we get a spectrum, between two dominant behavior clusters.

From a science point of view, it's not really hard to understand.

[Harry Baldman]

I'm not entirely sure non-binary genders don't breed, Reelya, since the existence of non-binary genders is (apart from, say, hijras and certain oblique historical references, and with the latter it seems that what they probably meant was intersex individuals), due to rarity and lack of nomenclature, poorly documented across history before, say, the 20th century or even the 21st. So saying that they possess a definite reproductive disadvantage might be an evopsych asspull like any other (women like pink because delicious berries are pink (?) and thus they maximize berry gains because they like them more because they are pink), especially since social pressure to reproduce could drive you to fall in line (especially in the case of women, in the lying back and thinking of England sense) even if the prospect made you deeply unhappy and you had no other choice in the matter.

For that matter, it's not necessarily the case that non-binary gender is hereditary at all, and even if it is, like pretty much any complex trait it is probably sufficiently multifactorial that even if a measurable reproductive disadvantage exists, it would still be barely possible to regulate by mere natural selection.

[Reelya]

Evolution, dude. Tiny differences over multiple generations. Genderqueer people could breed at 99.9% of the rate of cisgender people. That would be enough to ensure that any genes that encouraged that would have died out over the course of human evolution, or additional regulatory genes which maximized the number of breeding pairs would have arisen.

That's Darwin 101 basically.

EDIT: So natural selection made humans from dirt, but regulating sexuality is "too complex"? Seems kinda like a weak argument if you're pro-evolution. I'd say that evolution has given us some pretty damn amazing regulatory systems, given that we are this complex already and don't just drop dead.

Basically, if we looked at any other species and noticed distinct male and female behavior, it wouldn't be a problem that evolution explains that. We act like humans are special, and our behavior is so fucking special snowflake that it's above evolution's influence? Sorry man, that doesn't make a lick of sense, scientifically.

[Harry Baldman]

Evolution, dude. Tiny differences over multiple generations = dominance. Genderqueer people could breed at 99% of the rate of cisgender. That would be enough that any genes that encouraged that would die out.

That's Darwin 101 basically.

Multifactorial inheritance, which is Genetics 201. Neutral evolution, also not quite Darwin 101. Mostly neutral evolution, where alleles may wander and mix without significant selective pressure. Evolution! It's a complex thing.

Green-eyed redheads, for instance. They breed at 99% of the rate of non-green eyed redheads because the color green is better perceived by the human eye than all others, and thus 1 out of a 100 green-eyed redheads has a really creepy and intense stare that drives away sexual partners. Because of this very few have made it to this day. Meanwhile, OCD makes mothers extremely attentive (and schizophrenia also probably, let's just throw that in there), increasing the reproductive fitness of their children because of good parenting, and so their prevalence is increasing to this very day as evolution does its work.

Point is, that's a just-so story you're pushing. It's trivial to phrase something in a way that makes it seem like evolution favors it, which is why evopsych is derided as a field.

EDIT: So natural selection made humans from dirt, but regulating sexuality is "too complex"? Seems kinda like a weak argument if you're pro-evolution. I'd say that evolution has given us some pretty damn amazing regulatory systems, given that we are this complex already and don't just drop dead.

Basically, if we looked at any other species and noticed distinct male and female behavior, it wouldn't be a problem that evolution explains that. We act like humans are special, and our behavior is so fucking special snowflake that it's above evolution's influence? Gimme a break while I barf.

Also not a very good argument. Evolution is a free-running, iterative, cobbled-together thing in a great many ways. Just ask the vast number of transposons in your genome. As long as one doesn't jump into the 2% of exons or 10% of introns you'll probably be fine. And if it does, even then it won't have any bearing on your heredity because they're so deeply entrenched in the genome that getting rid of them is actually impossible (and perhaps even harmful because they may be vital to maintaining the superstructure of your DNA).

In short, evolution does anything it can get away with. Evolution might not even regulate non-binary genders. And even if it does, there's no conclusive evidence that non-binary genders are significantly detrimental to reproductive fitness across actual history. Your liver shutting off suddenly due to missing enzymes is a clear detrimental influence. Your gender preferences are not.

[hops]

I wonder what will happen when we reach the generation of children produced from arbitrary sexes? I mean, it is possible already, isn't it?

[Reelya]

Well if you follow my argument about genetics, it should be possible to engineer arbitrary new genders, with enough generations of breeding, or gene manipulation.

Also not a very good argument. Evolution is a free-running, iterative, cobbled-together thing in a great many ways. Just ask the vast number of transposons in your genome. As long as one doesn't jump into the 2% of exons or 10% of introns you'll probably be fine. And if it does, even then it won't have any bearing on your heredity because they're so deeply entrenched in the genome that getting rid of them is actually impossible (and perhaps even harmful because they may be vital to maintaining the superstructure of your DNA).

In short, evolution does anything it can get away with. Evolution might not even regulate non-binary genders. And even if it does, there's no conclusive evidence that non-binary genders are significantly detrimental to reproductive fitness across actual history.

The amount of genes that differ between individuals is very small, due to natural selection. Only traits with little effect on reproduction will have high variance. Anything that affects reproduction suffers STRONG selection pressures. So they're just the sorts of traits which shouldn't vary very much, in evolutionary terms.

both sexes interest in breeding with the other sex should be the #1 evolution pressure, you'd think. That's what it's all about actually. And the mother nurturing her young. Universal trait in all mother animals. No reason to think it's different with us. Sure, a "counter example" might be penguins, where the male watches the egg. But that's not really a good counter-example, because it's just another example of gender dimorphism in complex behavior related to reproduction that has arisen via evolution, and is pretty much universal to those species.

Also the traits we are talking about that differ, are also well within the range of behavior traits we see in non-humans, which vary by gender. Occam's razor comes into play here. Why say "it's too hard for evolution to do that" in our species, when it's clearly not too hard for evolution to make male and female chimps have similar behavior differences?

And your argument that non-binary genders have no connection to reproduction? It's a logical fallacy, for the main reason that what we label "inherent gender" are exactly those behavioral traits which increase the reproductive "fitness" of their associated biological sex, while being worse for the Darwinian "fitness" for the other sex, than some other option. If a trait had no particular reason to be associated with either gender, it would either die out (if it was less good than some rival gene) or become universal to both sexes (because it's beneficial to have for both genders), therefore it wouldn't be part of "gender" at all.

Actually, the argument that "any trait could be associated with either gender" is the clincher. Sure, I totally buy that. But look at chimps again. We see universal gender dimorphism in behavior. The non-binary theory should say that any chimp, by definition could get any behavior. But that's not what we see. Any behavior could be associated with male or female, with equal probability. But the process of natural selection ensures that that never happens.

[kilakan]

I wonder what will happen when we reach the generation of children produced from arbitrary sexes? I mean, it is possible already, isn't it?

What do you mean, like two men's dna mixed to produce a viable offspring?  Because no I do not believe that is currently within our medical scope, though I'd love to read an article about whether or not it is possible. As far as I am aware there is certain parts of the genetic code that comes purely from the female partner, and it would take a lot of careful manipulation to make it accept a male genome in place of that (without causing health issues for the offspring).  Though surrogate mothers for male couples is common practice already where I live, and those just take samples from both men, mix them together and go so you don't know which is definitely the father.

[Harry Baldman]

The amount of genes that differ between individuals is very small, due to natural selection. Only traits with little effect on reproduction will have high variance. Anything that affects reproduction suffers STRONG selection pressures. So they're just the sorts of traits which shouldn't vary very much, in evolutionary terms.

Also the traits we are talking about that differ, are also behavior traits we see in non-humans, which vary by gender. Occam's razor comes into play here. Why say "it's too hard for evolution to do that" in our species, when it's clearly not too hard for evolution to make male and female chimps have similar behavior differences?

And what I'm saying is that you don't have any evidence that non-binary gender is a trait that affects reproduction or is indeed a trait strongly influenced by genetics at all. It could be much more strongly influenced by developmental factors that reinforce certain patterns in the nervous system. In the not-too-distant example of homosexuality, compare the effect that having an older brother does on male homosexuality. It's the classic genetics experiment issue - it's very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room, particularly when the cat isn't there. If you want to cite evolutionary pressures for something as subtle and complex as human behavior, you need to have your relevant alleles and the corresponding prevalences of a certain trait discovered or at least evaluated (or do something like with schizophrenia, comparing identical and non-identical twins, where identical ones have a 40% correlation of schizophrenia compared to a much smaller one for non-identical ones), otherwise you're just talking out of your ass.

I mean, while you bring up chimps and sexual behavior, there's bonobos. They seem pretty into girls and not at all into monogamy (don't they know that monogamy increases the fitness of their offspring due to the extra care a committed relationship between their parents brings to the children! or have they evaluated the value of group cohesion and found monogamy wanting in comparison? why has monogamy survived in human populations to the point where it is the dominant relationship strategy in that case when the bonobo way is so much better? so many puzzles!), and yet this doesn't seem to be either terribly rare or scourged by the omniscient hand of evolution as you imply altered sexualities (not even non-binary genders, mind, which are significantly subtler) should be. That old chestnut of pedophilia seems potentially pretty damaging to sexual behavior, and yet there's estimates of it being found anywhere in 4% to a whopping 33% (depending likely on how stringently you classify it) of adult men. And yet evolution doesn't seem to have exorcised this aberrant psychological behavior from our genomes. How have pedophiles maintained high reproductive fitness across history while non-binary genders have not? What advice would you have given our non-binary forebears to make our gender spectrum not resemble a double bell curve?

[hops]

I wonder what will happen when we reach the generation of children produced from arbitrary sexes? I mean, it is possible already, isn't it?

What do you mean, like two men's dna mixed to produce a viable offspring?  Because no I do not believe that is currently within our medical scope, though I'd love to read an article about whether or not it is possible. As far as I am aware there is certain parts of the genetic code that comes purely from the female partner, and it would take a lot of careful manipulation to make it accept a male genome in place of that (without causing health issues for the offspring).  Though surrogate mothers for male couples is common practice already where I live, and those just take samples from both men, mix them together and go so you don't know which is definitely the father.

I mean two men and one woman's DNA, or two women and one man's DNA, or anything group where there are both sexes, but it does not necessarily exclude homosexuals from passing down their genes.

[kilakan]

Oh yeah, I think that's possible already and it should be an interesting point of view when those offspring are old enough to start posting on places like bay12 hah!

On the homosexuality/genetics token I'd like to chip in with:  Hasn't it been proven multiple times that homosexuality becomes more relevant as population concentration increases both in people and lab test animals (rats come to mind).  Thus showing that if it is a genetic trait that can be passed on, it would likely swap off in times of low population density, allowing the individuals to reproduce freely and frequently until population grows too high.  At that point it'd turn back on in some of the offspring slowing growth to prevent widespread famine?  (In times of antiquity that is.)

[Reelya]

And what I'm saying is that you don't have any evidence that non-binary gender is a trait that affects reproduction or is indeed a trait strongly influenced by genetics at all.

Well there's a minor thing called an X or Y chromosome, and having or not having it affects both sex and gendered behavior quite heavily in our nearest relatives.

The "bonobos are different" argument isn't very convincing, because male bonobos do actually show signs of following evolutionarily advantageous mating strategies. The fact that they're different to chimps is not really a great argument that sexual dimorphism doesn't arise from genetics. bonobos still have sexual dimorphism. Females are dominant, and promiscuous. Hence males can't be sure which offspring are theirs, and they have even less involvement with the young bonobos than male chimps do - male bonobos neither help nor hinder the young bonobos (since it could be your kid, but probably isn't). So dimorphism in gendered behavior - and it makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective.

non-binary forebears

You have to go back pre-fish to find a non-binary forebear.

As for outliers, what's the historical rate of infant mortality and other deaths? And family size? You can have a lot of outliers, who don't breed or are ineffective breeders. But they don't end up making up much of the germline. That's why we have extra babbies. As for the outliers, they almost exclusively involve borrowing behaviors from the other gender, or grades in between, rather than "way out" behaviors like ... sexual attraction to fish or some such. Which just serves to reinforce the idea of two behavior "poles" to which our options are drawn.

[Harry Baldman]

Well there's a minor thing called an X or Y chromosome, and having or not having it affects both sex and gendered behavior quite heavily in our nearest relatives.

Non-binary gender is determined by sex chromosomes? What karyotype characterizes a demigirl, then? XX with one arm curlier than average?

Once again, being genderqueer (as opposed to having Klinefelter syndrome, cystic fibrosis or being at-risk for schizophrenia) is in no way backed up by genetics, at least not as far as you have demonstrated, and evolution does not apply to it if this is the case. It is up to you to prove otherwise.

The "bonobos are different" argument isn't very convincing, because male bonobos do actually show signs of following evolutionarily advantageous mating strategies. The fact that they're different to chimps is not really a great argument that sexual dimorphism doesn't arise from genetics. bonobos still have sexual dimorphism. Females are dominant, and promiscuous. Hence males can't be sure which offspring are theirs, and they have even less involvement with childcare than male chimps. So dimorphism in gendered behavior - and it makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective.

The argument isn't that bonobos aren't following a good strategy, because they are. It's more that they're a counterexample to alternative sexualities negatively impacting reproductive fitness. Evopsych is, among other things, very limited by preconceived notions.

non-binary forebears

You have to go back pre-fish to find a non-binary forebear.

As for outliers, what's the historical rate of infant mortality and other deaths? And family size? You can have a lot of outliers, who don't breed or are ineffective breeders. But they don't end up making up much of the germline. That's why we have extra babbies.

I mean, earthworms do have a lot to teach us about hermaphrodite living. But that's not relevant to being genderqueer same as being XYY isn't, near as I can tell, relevant to being genderqueer.

If pedophiles don't breed, wouldn't their prevalence be significantly lower than it appears to be? Darwin 101, as you've mentioned before. And homosexuals, for that matter, shouldn't breed by definition. And yet up to 20% of respondents in modern anonymous polls report some level of homosexual tendencies these days.

Could it be that the traits we are examining are sufficiently multifactorial, complex and with little enough clear and consistent implication on reproductive fitness that their underlying hereditary component is latent in a considerable portion of the populace, and thus not very well-regulated by the simplified form of "good-bad" selection that was the model of choice in the first half of the 20th century while the science of genetics was in its infancy? And could a lot of evopsych be rendered dubious at best by groundbreaking research from as recently as 1969?

[Reelya]

Well there's a minor thing called an X or Y chromosome, and having or not having it affects both sex and gendered behavior quite heavily in our nearest relatives.

Non-binary gender is determined by sex chromosomes? What karyotype characterizes a demigirl, then? XX with one arm curlier than average?

What are you even? I got confused because your core argument makes so little sense.

Outliers don't disprove genetic convergence due to natural selection. So we can have "male-bits" members of the species converging on one set of behavior, while "female-bits" members of the species converging on another set of behavior.

That in no way implies there must be "genes" that explain non-binary people. Are you one of those people who believes in "gay genes" by any chance?

Your argument is basically "what genes explain non-binaries?" and that's basically a completely idiotic question. Different chemical exposure in the womb is one reason. Genes getting expressed at the wrong time. That happens. But note that when things go wrong, they tend to pull traits from the other gender, rather than thin air. Pre-programmed traits in other words.

[Harry Baldman]

I really don't get what you're talking about now. Gender is driven by pre-natal development.

Non-binary stuff is driven by variations in that, but the system tends to try and stick to the pattern.

Your argument is pretty incoherent, that's like saying birth defects disprove that genes control limb development.

Pre-natal development, yes. Genetics, however, is where my question comes in. Evolution comes in when genetics do. It's easy enough to point to an XXY karyotype as a cause of Klinefelter syndrome, but Klinefelter syndrome is not being genderqueer, the origins of which you have explained at best by conflating it with sexuality (and if it is conflated with sexuality in terminology, then the article still has a point in that untangling the confusion and applying the idea of gender more cautiously holds water in a sense).

And even in the case of prenatal development, it's not enough to point to prenatal testosterone, you need to point to their underlying cause. If you can't find a way to transmit these testosterone levels genetically, the idea that there can be selection pressure to begin with kind of falls apart. It's an argument that needs evidence, and can't be lightly made with a ballpark evolutionary estimate. I mostly take umbrage here with the liberal application of evopsych to things that it really shouldn't be.

[Reelya]

it's not enough to point to prenatal testosterone, you need to point to their underlying cause.

The underlying cause of the big difference in testosterone between men and women is pretty well established by science, I believe. We happen to know that female babies are exposed to a lot less in the womb. It also correlates to stereotypical boy/girl behavior in both male and female babies.

Here's some research on the brain differences correlated with testosterone:
http://www.eje-online.org/content/155/suppl_1/S115.full.pdf

Known stuff that pre-natal testosterone correlates with, according to the paper's summary:
- sexual orientation
- core gender identify
- sex-typical play behavior
- sex-typed toy preferences

Not mentioned there is the butch/femme lesbian research that correlates that to pre-natal testosterone as well. It's actually a much stronger correlation than the lesbianism itself. So in other words "gender typical roles" seems more strongly correlated with testosterone than the sexual orientation thingy, rather than the other way around.